And We Stay
by Candle At Noon
Summary: It's just a dream, John reminds himself, the afterimage of Sherlock's bloodied face playing across his eyelids. But if things had gone differently at the pool...  Johnlock
1. Night

I've ingested enormous amounts of Sherlock fanfic over the past few months, but this is my first attempt at producing anything. This will be a four-parter inspired by irisbleufic's beautiful tear-jerker, "I Meet You There, and We Go." Have mercy on my beta-less, American soul. And please review if you like it! Encouragement gets chapters written more quickly. :)

_.oOo._

_His body reacts on muscle memory, as if John has lunged for Sherlock a hundred times, as if he's enveloped Sherlock in his arms just like this on a hundred different adventures—_

_But he hasn't, yet. They haven't had the chance, and if the dull ache in his abdomen and the mangled bloody mess of Sherlock's shirt have anything to say about it, they never will, because this is their new ending. This is the moment that John, dependable John, didn't leap soon enough, though he supposes in this case that would have earned him nothing but a second bullet hole through his gut. He still can't help thinking he went wrong somewhere; there must have been something somewhere he could've done, because after all it's his job, it's his job to keep Sherlock safe—_

_There's nothing left in the world but the heartbeat throbbing in his ears and Sherlock's face beneath his, ashen, drawn. There's grime on his cheek and blood at the corner of his mouth, and he hangs in John's arms like a corpse already. _Guess we're both goners then, _John thinks, because suddenly he knows, as adrenaline thrums through every corner of his body and a shuddering cry escapes his lips, that Sherlock is all there is, Sherlock is all there ever was, and it's a cruel god that showed him this only after the explosion as Sherlock's life is leaking out all over his hands—_

John awakes in a tangle of sheets, a sheen of sweat already chilling on his skin. For a moment his ragged breathing is an echo of the gasps beside the pool, but the impression fades and he's left listening as each gasp escapes into the hollow darkness of his room.

_Sherlock,_ he thinks. He pulls himself upright in bed and palms at his eyes. Despite what the logical part of his mind is telling him (Sherlock always acts surprised when John demonstrates any amount of logical thought, the bastard,) John can't quite get the real world and the dream world sorted, and he looks fuzzily about the room for debris or blood or a long white corpse before deciding it's safe to swing his legs over the edge of the bed.

The floor is cold, but so is the rest of him now that the sweat's cooled. He thinks little of it as he fumbles with the door and takes a few uncertain steps down the hallway. _What am I doing,_ he wonders, but he knows the answer, and it scares him a little.

He just needs to see him, he reasons. John lets his feet carry him through the quiet flat toward the sofa. He's not sure how he knows, but it's something he's started to take for granted over the past few weeks—that he always finds Sherlock in the first place he looks for him, as long as he's somewhere in the flat. He figures he must listen subconsciously, the same way Sherlock does when he's not too buried in his mind's palace to notice that John's been gone for three hours and there's no one but the skull left to bear witness to his demands.

Sherlock _is_ on the sofa, of course, still wearing the clothes John saw him in yesterday morning, though they're now considerably more rumpled. He's turned toward the cushions, petulant even in sleep. The small lamp has turned him into a study in light and shadows, and his features fade into darkness against the back of the sofa. The odd lines and angles of his limbs remind John's sluggish mind of half-folded lawn furniture.

_Saw,_ he thinks, _now back to sleep._ But it isn't enough. The prat's facing away from him. The expanse of his back isn't enough to wash away the impression of blood and ash.

Steadily, but with caution, John approaches Sherlock's slumbering form. All these months and it's still strange to see the man asleep. No furious deductions, no wild hand gestures or bow flying across violin or tap-tap of cell phone keys. Sometimes he maintains the frantic energy even in unconsciousness, all twitchiness and shallow breaths, but this is one of the still nights that John is thankful for. When the mad genius can finally find some rest. _My mad genius,_ John tries, and the words already feel like old friends.

It's natural, after all. Inevitable, even.

He's loath to wake the man, and pauses before he perches carefully at the edge of a cushion, his hip and Sherlock's lower back bumping together softly. He's losing his nerve now, the fog of sleep creeping back from the edges of his mind. No matter. One waking the other in the middle of the night doesn't even make the list of top one hundred strange things that have happened in the flat since they moved in together, John reasons. One waking the other to kiss him in the middle of the night might, but his brain stalls out at that thought and he decides it'd be best to save it for when he gets there. If he gets there. _Was that even part of the plan?_

He places a hand on the crinkled burgundy fabric stretched across Sherlock's shoulder. "Sherlock," he whispers, and for the first time he fully appreciates what a brilliant name it is, hard and soft, a lover's caress and the lunge of a viper rolled into one. Or maybe it's just the way John says it. The way it feels at four AM on a chilly Thursday morning in a dimly lit room after a nightmare.

Sherlock stirs. Rolls halfway over. He treats John to a blank stare through half-lidded eyes before scrubbing at his face with a fist and pushing himself upright.

"What is it?" he asks. His baritone voice is still thick with sleep.

It hits John like a shockwave, and for a split second Sherlock is dying again, going limp and cold in his arms and there's nothing John can do but shut his eyes and try not to scream (_here or there? _John wonders, because everything's all mixed up again) and when his eyes open he's got a hand fisted in the front of Sherlock's shirt that wasn't there just a moment ago. He keeps it there.

"Sorry," he says to his knee. Sherlock watches.

"Nightmare," John says by way of explanation, then, "I just wanted you to know—"

What was it again? He searches Sherlock's face for a reminder. God, those eyes; he'd gladly spend the rest of his days shooting deranged cabbies and yanking off bomb vests if it meant he could keep them by his side. He shifts on the sofa, fabric sliding against fabric until his face stops just a hair's breadth from Sherlock's.

The detective hasn't so much as batted an eye. A stillness settles over them both, spreading from the point of almost-contact at their lips down to John's bare feet and out to Sherlock's sock-clad ones. Utter stillness, and 221B obliges them by falling as still and silent as they are. Even flats know, sometimes.

Sherlock's cheeks are tinged with pink and his eyelashes hang low over his eyes. John can smell him—salt and expensive soap and the hot strong scent of Sherlock's skin after a challenging case—and he's about to will himself forward when Sherlock whispers "John" and the spell is broken.

He wouldn't call it fleeing, exactly, but John does beat a hasty and stiff retreat back down the hall that seems more compelled by horror than thoughtful planning. He doesn't stop until he's toppled across his bed, staring abjectly at the rumpled sheets piled up in front of his nose. The duvet's crawled off to the floor somewhere, and it probably doesn't matter anyway because there's no way in hell John's getting back to sleep any time before this weekend. "What was I thinking?" he mutters into the crush of fabric pressed up against his face.

_Bloody hell, let him deduce _that _one_, John thinks, and lies across his bed with his bare feet hanging over the edge until his alarm goes off for work.


	2. Morning

John used to love the quiet of mornings. The stillness in the flat around him, broken only by the clinking of his mug against the table or the muffled groan of a car's engine from the street below. Morning light shafting through the window, cool, clear, whiter somehow than it would be after it had aged a few hours. Jam. Breadcrumbs.

Not now. Now they make him tense.

Silences beg to be shattered by Sherlock bursting through the front door in a flurry of excitement, or (especially if it's some ungodly morning hour and something's got Sherlock on edge and John has work early tomorrow) the deliberate shrieking of a violin that means "I can play brilliantly when I want to, thank you, but I think I won't." Silences are tenuous, evanescent things in 221B. Soap bubbles.

This particular morning is especially uncomfortable thanks to the moment that transpired—nearly transpired—three night previous, the moment that John can't exactly and isn't yet quite willing to convince himself wasn't a dream. Did he really…? And then he….

"Shouldn't. Have. Done that," he says to the empty room, and sips his tea. He thinks for a moment that his hand is shaking, but when he focuses on it, it's steady as a statue's.

There's a Sherlock-shaped space on the couch. The consulting detective's door stands half way open to reveal a crooked duvet and a crumpled robe—a room that was left in a hurry. There's even a mug on the table that John has left untouched for reasons he hasn't though too hard about. Two days Sherlock has been absent. Two days of perfect peace, three beautiful quiet mornings, and John's finally beginning to understand Sherlock's moods because he feels like shooting holes in the wall or possibly harpooning a pig.

It's not that Sherlock hasn't disappeared for days at a time without so much as a "laterz" before; of course he has. John used to appreciate the respite. Being around Sherlock will steadily drive him mad until he gets a few days off to collect himself, and then he's ready for the bony curly-haired maniac to stride back into his life and repeat the whole process over again. It's ridiculous, and he shouldn't put up with it (so he tells himself), and he wouldn't put up with it if Sherlock weren't so brilliant and magnetic and, yes, dangerous, and maybe if he's honest with himself he'll admit that the frustration is part of the charm. Maybe.

But this time John wasn't _ready._

He dumps the remainder of his tea down the drain and gives his plate a half-hearted rinse before abandoning it to the sink. For once he's glad he's spending a Saturday at the clinic. The silence in the flat is too accusatory.

_Shouldn't have done that, _he repeats to himself. _Why did I do that?_

He reaches for a towel to dry his hands. Just like that, the soap bubble bursts.

"Good morning, Mrs. Hudson," a rumbling voice echoes up the steps. John freezes with the towel dangling from one hand as a rapid succession of footsteps grows louder, and he can't uncurl his fingers until a fraction of a second before the door opens. He realizes his hands are still wet and he's wiping them on his pants like the berk he is when Sherlock strides past the entrance to the kitchen.

"Back from holiday, are we?" John says, as flatly as he can manage.

Sherlock shrugs out of his coat, tosses it over the back of the armchair and sits with a flounce. He begins picking burrs from his sleeve industriously. "More or less. Unsolved murders are always a holiday for me."

"Lovely," John mutters to the sink. _I can't believe I missed this psychopath_, he thinks, and suddenly he misses him all the more.

"Going to the clinic?" Sherlock asks briskly, as if he doesn't already know the answer.

"Yep."

Pick. Pick. Pick.

"Did you, what…go hiking through the underbrush or something?"

Sherlock's thin fingers hesitate above his shirt cuff for a moment. "Crawling, actually," he responds. The picking resumes.

John has been so distracted by the movement of Sherlock's slender hands that it's only now he gets a good look at his face.

"Bloody hell, Sherlock," he says. The sarcasm has dropped from his voice. "Have you slept _at all _since you left?"

The man's face contorts into a dramatic caricature of disgust before a sharp shake of his head wipes the expression away. "Waste of time. I had more interesting things to do."

"Yeah, well. Take the day off, you'll drop dead from exhaustion." John can't even pretend not to care. It's infuriating.

He blunders out of the kitchen to brush his teeth and yank his shoes on as quickly as he can. _So we're not talking about it,_ he thinks, nodding to himself. He's all but decided it's for the best by the time he's standing at the door with his coat in hand, and then some little part of his brain revolts and commandeers his tongue before the rest can beat it into submission.

"Are we… okay?"

He cringes. Here he is, the doctor, the soldier, begging his flatmate's forgiveness like a gawky schoolboy. No one but Sherlock can make him feel like such a _child_.

Sherlock brushes sharply at his sleeve. He hasn't looked up. "Yes, fine. Splendid."

John scowls. Nods once. "Right. Alright."

He tugs the front door open. _Not fine, _he thinks. _Not fine at all._


End file.
